31-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Museum Acts as Casio's Own Memory Lane
Say the name Casio, and people will usually have a story to tell — often a memory involving a first watch or a synthesizer that they played with while growing up.
It was 1986 when Haider Kareem, a Casio watch collector who posts on Instagram as vintagecasios, got his first Casio: a W50U World Time.
'I was fascinated by its ability to track different time zones, and to this day, I still have it,' said Mr. Kareem, who lives in the English county of Oxfordshire. 'That watch sparked a lifelong appreciation for Casio's innovation and practicality.' Today, he owns more than 300 Casios.
There is a place in Tokyo where fans can take a trip down Casio's own memory lane: the Toshio Kashio Memorial Museum of Invention, a Western-style house filled with inventions by the Kashio brothers, the founders of the company. (Mr. Kareem said the museum was on his itinerary for a trip to Tokyo in May; he missed it during a previous one because he didn't realize that reservations were required, even though entry was free of charge.) Akira Watanabe, who works in corporate communications at Casio Computer Co., gave the reporter a tour of the museum. Credit... Andrew Faulk for The New York Times
On a recent wintry day, I headed to the museum, which stands in the affluent Seijo neighborhood of western Tokyo. Although I have lived in the same general area for several years, I had no idea the museum existed: There are some small signs that I had overlooked and the two-level concrete house sits well back from the street, surrounded by a large garden that is now a public park.
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